powerful instrument. All except Japetus revolve nearly
in the plane of the ring. Like the moons of Jupiter, they present
remarkable and unaccountable variations of brilliancy. An inspection
[Page 173] of the table reveals either an expectation that another
moon will be discovered between V. and VI., and about three more
between VII. and VIII., or that these gaps may be filled with groups
of invisible asteroids, as the gap between Mars and Jupiter. This
will become more evident by drawing Saturn, the rings, and orbits of
the moons all as circles, on a scale of 10,000 miles to the inch.
Saturn will be in the centre, 70,000 miles in diameter; then a gap,
decreasing twenty-nine miles a year to the first ring, of, say,
10,000 miles; a dark ring 9000 miles wide; next the brightest ring
18,300 miles wide; then a gap of 1750 miles; then the outer ring
10,000 miles wide; then the orbits of the satellites in order.

If the scenery of Jupiter is magnificent, that of Saturn must be
sublime. If one could exist there, he might wander from the illuminated
side of the rings, under their magnificent arches, to the darkened
side, see the swift whirling moons; one of them presenting ten times
the disk of the earth's moon, and so very near as to enable him
to watch the advancing line of light that marks the lunar morning
journeying round that orb.

URANUS.

Sign [Symbol]; the initial of Herschel, and sign of the world.

DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 1,771,000,000 MILES. DIAMETER, 31,700 MILES.
AXIAL REVOLUTION UNKNOWN. ORBITAL, 84 YEARS. VELOCITY PER MINUTE,
252 MILES. MOONS, FOUR.

Uranus was presented to the knowledge of man as an unexpected reward
for honest work. It was first mistaken by its discoverer for a comet,
a mere cloud of vapor; but it proved to be a world, and extended the
[Page 174] boundaries of our solar system, in the moment of its
discovery, as much as all investigation had done in all previous
ages.

Sir William Herschel was engaged in mapping stars in 1781, when he
first observed its sea-green disk. He proposed to call it _Georgium
Sidus_, in honor of his king; but there were too many names of the
gods in the sky to allow a mortal name to be placed among them. It
was therefore called Uranus, since, being the most distant body of
our system, as was supposed, it might appropriately bear the name
of the oldest god. Finding anything in God's realms of infinite
riches ought not to lead men to regard that as final, but a